Bring your own Russula

During the Swedish workshop in 2018, we presented proposal for global Russula morphology standards. These standards help to compare details in descriptions of different mycologists and help to understand differences among closely related or look-alike species. They are the result of international Russula cooperation and they were used in a publication of 26 species, re-described or published first for science by scientists from different countries. There are also other reasons why international cooperation may significantly simplify and improve Russula research. One of them is collection share. Well documented collections from various countries, regions, and biotopes help to understand species limits in term of morphological, ecological and genetic variability. Such material is necessary to recognize if geographical distance and barriers, ecological and climate conditions and various host trees contributed to adaptation and evolution of new species. The collection share may also facilitate access to fresh material from type localities or other historically interesting sites and to understand original concept of older species names.

We requested Russulales community to contribute with their collections of Russula subsection Amoeninae. The group is easy to recognize because of dry velvety surface of the cap, specific smell of Lactarius volemus and absence of cystidia. Three species, R. amoena, R. amoenicolor and R. violeipes are recognized in Europe. We know there are 3 more species in Southeast Asia; one was described from India, nine from the USA. The morphological delimitation of European species has never been tested by a phylogenetic study. The participants of the Russulales workshop 2022 in Spain brought dried collections of Amoeninae or post them after the workshop. Our common Amoeninae dataset now has collections from different countries and ecosystems of Europe. We will present phylogenetic tree and compare it with knowledge from past at the 2024 workshop in Estonia.